


All Over This Land

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Earth-3, Gen, Interlude, Mirror Universe, Networking, Presents, awesome but impractical, friendship is the best power, multiracial Gotham btw, post office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 18:12:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4971211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which our hero is an inveterate gossip, runs errands, and receives a very special gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Over This Land

"Hey, J-man. You've got five letters this week, and _this_." Claude the postal worker heaved a cardboard box up onto the countertop—it was long and flattish, nearly four feet end to end, two across, and about one deep, and judging by the way Claude heaved, much heavier at one end than the other.

It was addressed to 'Jokester, Esq.' c/o Gotham Museum of Natural History with the attendant address (occasionally his mail actually made it as far as the museum, where he was generally able to recover it; it was a much better system than handing out whatever his current address happened to be even if he hadn't had an understanding with the post office), and there was an envelope taped securely to the top.

"I'm pretty sure it's not a bomb or anything," said Claude, fidgeting a little. "But…you will open it somewhere else, right?"

J had once (and by once he meant five months ago) opened a letter in the post office that had resulted in everything in the place being dyed blue. People for a week, and paper forever. His fans were weirder than his enemies, sometimes, and both kinds of weird sent him mail.

"Don't worry," he assured Claude, who was probably only a little younger than him (older, if you measured from when his actual memory started, but everybody past _elementary school_ was that so no) but still seemed like a kid somehow, and patted his wrist as he took the letters, before leaning forward to lift his package. "Last thing I want is to get you in trouble, buddy." There were no 'fragile' or '^-THIS SIDE UP-^' stickers to be seen, so he shuffled the box around so the heavy end was propped against his hip, then tucked the letters into the hand of the elbow supporting it, and gave Claude a grin. "Paula says you should ask Mimi out already," he confided. "She thinks you're cute. And I happen to know she's crazy about forsythia and violets, if you want to make a good impression bouquet-wise."

Claude blushed, subtly through pale brown, up to the roots of his hair. "You want to buy some stamps?" he mumbled.

"Ah-heh, not today, thanks. Got my hands full. Catch you next week?"

Claude nodded, his mind already several miles away, almost certainly with Mimi. J cackled under his breath as he let himself out of the post office onto the business of downtown Gotham at nine in an unusually sunny spring morning. He could see the kid fighting not to smile dopily, though the blush wasn't going anywhere.

Win, he thought smugly as he headed home, ducking into Sanjeev's grocery store to get half a dozen eggs and some bread on the way, and staying to gossip about Parneet's engagement and the ironic new luxury tax on imported tea and the rumors that another local gang had been eviscerated by Owlman's prepubescent demonling and the remnants conscripted, but more importantly _Parneet was finally engaged_ , and he stayed an extra five minutes talking about wedding colors to get his good mood back, until his mystery package started to be awkward to keep balancing on his hip. It worked, though, and he left with a spring in his step, juggling his mail and groceries.

His fingers were itching with curiosity, and it was _really_ hard to keep from plopping the thing down somewhere on the sidewalk on his way home and looking inside, but he waited until he'd climbed the stairs to his attic room and closed the door before he set his stuff on the table with the mystery package in the middle, pried free the sealed envelope taped to the top, and tore it open.

Inside was a single folded piece of paper—nice, heavy stuff, the kind they called _stationery,_ though without a letterhead—with a message typewritten across the middle. _Mr. Jokester,_ ran the salutation, hilariously enough—not that he'd never heard that one before, but typed out on creamy paper it looked funnier. He wondered whether his mysterious correspondent had used a typewriter out of a sense of propriety, or because he didn't want his handwriting associated with the package.

He set that amusing question aside and returned to the letter. It was very brief.

> _Mr. Jokester—_
> 
> _I've been following your work with some admiration. Consider this a sign of good will._
> 
> _—The Insider_

Jokester gaped.

He'd heard of The Insider before, of course. It was a person or group that for some years now had been increasingly known to slip important information or donations to certain vigilantes, subversives, and other causes that it wasn't good politics to support openly. The Insider's endorsement wasn't any formal kind of recognition, but it was a sign he _was_ making a real splash in the time since he'd started making a big show of his work, and not coming off as just another nut job, either. The vigilante community was an enclosed one, especially at the more publicly accepted end, and this recommendation might go pretty far with guys like Captain Cold and his crew over in Keystone, or Robin Longbow in the Star region.

Assuming it was for real. J dug out the razor blade hidden in his cuff and slit the tape sealing the box. Nothing happened. He flipped the cardboard flaps open and flung himself back against the wall.

Still nothing. Not bothering to feel sheepish when there was no one to see, Jokester sniggered and pushed off the wall with his elbows, before padding back to the table to peer into the depths of his present.

It was…a hammer. Or possibly a mallet. Nearly as long as the box, most of it handle, with a head the size of a small bucket. The surface was bright metal, worked with what looked at first glance like an embossed design but which, examined more closely, were the seams of moving parts.

J reached out and lifted it, carefully, by the middle of the long handle, just below a row of mysterious multicolored buttons, and gave it an experimental swing. The balance was perfect.

In accordance with his basic nature, he then pushed the big red button.

 _Crsh!_ went the demolished back of the nearest chair, and J let out a startled, delighted yelp. A pair of _boxing gloves on springs,_ of all things, had rocketed out of the flats of the mallet-head, destroyed the furniture unfortunate enough to get in their way, and vanished sedately behind their gleaming panel again. J laughed again, and spun the thing around the back of his hand like a particularly heavy baton.

Whoever The Insider was, he or she was alright in Jokester's book. This hammer was a perfect quintessence of form, function, and absurdity, and he loved it already. Owlman was going to have conniptions. He hated looking ridiculous.

Plus, there was a slim user's manual lying in the bottom of the box. Trial and error was the most enjoyable way to learn, assuming you survived it, but he appreciated that kind of attention to detail. Showed consideration.

**Author's Note:**

> This hammer was one of the things I took directly from canon mirrorverses. During the Countdown to Infinite Crisis, the Challengers of the Beyond were rescued from the Injustice Syndicate by Jokester, and his hammer took Ultraman down for multiple seconds in one hit, while simultaneously punching Owlman in the face. I was very impressed. I said 'where did he get that?' I answered myself.
> 
> ^^ Typewritten note is because it's still the mid80s here, btw. It's DC so schizotech abounds, especially at the research end, but although laser printing became available around this time, not that many people had access to one. Typewriters were still everywhere. Therefore, more subtle choice, despite the individual tics to which they are famously prone.
> 
> (Claude has a Haitian dad and a Polish-American mom, btw, and came out on the pale side for that mix. This is the kind of thing it is very hard to convey in passing without sounding exceptionally forced, especially with a narrator like J who fails to parse a number of things, including race, like a normal person, but it's been annoying me that I'm probably the only one picturing him right, so I came back and made edits.)


End file.
